Adventures

Tripping: Punakaiki Cavern, July 2019

September 13, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

Well, I intended to get this post up last month, but that didn’t happen—my baby sister was born on August 20th, and life became a bit crazy for a while after that! Here I am now, though, with some pictures of a bit of caving (or is that spelunking?) that we got to do near the end of July—I’m hoping we can go back there sometime!

First, a picture of the sign and entrance. Doesn’t look like much, does it? We didn’t expect much more than a little hole in the rocks.

When we got in there, we discovered several large rooms, and branching off from there were lots of little side-tunnels! I’m sure we didn’t explore them all, but the ones we did see were fascinating!

The boys, of course, had to find a rope and explore the upper level:

I was intrigued by the different stalactite and stalagmite formations I saw:

I think we were all thankful we took lights with us—that made the exploration much more interesting!

The main room was massive!

In all, it was a very successful adventure, and I think we’d all like to go back and visit!

Have you ever gone caving before? What was your most memorable adventure underground? I think mine was when we took a trip through Mammoth Cave in Kentucky when I was a girl! That was fascinating!

Tripping: Punakaiki, July 2019

August 15, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

If there’s one place on the West Coast that has grabbed my heart for the beauty, it’s just about got to be Punakaiki, or more specifically, the Pancake Rocks located there. I love wild scenery, and there’s nothing you can get much more wild than the ocean thrusting its way up through the rocks to burst in spray above you (or below, depending on how rough the sea is on any particular day).

When we went there with friends last month, we first stopped at an old mining equipment exhibit. I liked the brand name on several of the rims—it’s a good reminder, although I have no idea what it stands for!

I always enjoy the walk out to the blow holes, trying to spot what spray we can as we go! This time, we got a few good peeks on our way out.

Quite possibly my favorite blowhole, the Chimney Pot:

And then there is this one, the most famous and the biggest. Putai, I believe. I love watching it blow. The action wasn’t quite as good as other times that I’ve been there, but it was still enough to be enjoyable—and I was thankful for a few good ones!

Here is a video I got of Putai in action:

And then there is the Surge Pool, which is always fascinating to watch and listen to!

Watching the spray from a distance….

And then, on the way back, we had a special treat! Little sister caught my hand and said, “look! there’s an owl!” I looked, but couldn’t see a thing for a while—then, it finally turned its head and I saw it. A native morepork, I think. So small and cute—the first one I’ve seen in the wild.

Like I said, I always enjoy going to the Pancake Rocks for a look around. It’s never the same two times in a row. What are some of your favorite places to visit near where you live?

Tripping: The Nelson Post

July 25, 2019 // Esther Filbrun Leave a Comment

The past few weeks have been busy with multiple trips to different places. I’ve been able to catch up with quite a few different people from different places, which has been extra-special! Isn’t the Lord good to put different ones in our paths?

Two weekends ago, we took a family trip over to the east coast to visit friends at a little church there. It was an encouraging overnight trip; so good to see everyone, even if the visit felt far too short! I loved the view of the Southern Alps on our way back home!

Then, a couple days later, I took two brothers with me up to Nelson. Mom is due in about five weeks, and I wanted to be sure to have a good rocking chair here before the baby comes, hence the need to go and pick one up. I didn’t want to drive something like seven (plus) hours straight, so we arranged to spend the night with friends up there before coming back the next day. It’s been probably six months or so since we last caught up with those friends, so it was pretty special to do that! Other friends from Kaikoura were there as well at the same time, which made it extra-special!

Our friends are living at a Christian campground, so we had a quick tour the next morning before we left. Here is the main community building, with the dining room/lounge on the far left, the (beautifully large!) kitchen near the middle of the building, and a three-bedroom flat on the right wing for families or “camp mums” with their children. The white-roofed building off to the right is the beginning of a long row of cabins, and the fenced-in area holds a massive blow-up pillow for the children to play on!

We also got to explore the massive maze they have set up; I started going through it, but soon everyone else outstripped me, and I decided I would rather do without the mud and be ready to go when they all got out. I was assured that you couldn’t get lost in it!

I was also quite impressed by the long obstacle course that is set up! The apparatus was quite wet when we were there, but the children assured me it was quite fun. One girl said she had gone over it about 50 times! Most of the steps looked difficult enough to me, and for several I wasn’t quite sure what you were supposed to do there—maybe things are taken down over winter?

After exploring the campground, we headed up a short hill and got a look over the landscape. Back in January, I believe, there was a terrible fire that started up in these hills somewhere. It took quite a while for the firefighters to put it out, but the special part was that though the fire was very close, the camp didn’t burn!

This is the fire line. If you follow the valley to the left of the house, you would get to the Christian camp. I’d guess it’s a five-minute walk back to the camp from there, at most. Lots of people were praying for protection of the camp when the fire was going on; this camp has been going for years, and many people have been blessed by it!

According to the report we heard, a firefighter that was working there at the time saw the fire coming—and then it got up to this spot, and stopped. He said he’d never seen anything like it before! The pine plantation there should have burned, but it didn’t. The house in this picture was part of the camp at one point, but isn’t anymore—and it just escaped being burned. God is so good!

After looking at the fire damage, we headed around over the top of the hill, and got a good view of the valley leading up to Nelson. It was a beautiful day to be out sight-seeing!

Beautiful New Zealand! Nelson city is off on the left of this picture, under the hazier part, if I remember correctly.

In all, I thoroughly enjoyed our little trip up there, and loved that we could get a little nature walk in at the same time. Grandma, I wish you could have been there; the birdsong was quite different than we have here, and very pretty!

What places have you been exploring lately? What are you enjoying in God’s creation right now?

What Will be Left? (An Abandoned Gold Mine Adventure)

October 13, 2018 // Esther Filbrun 1 Comment

Last Sunday, several people in our family had colds, so we had a family worship time together instead of meeting with our normal church group. Then, since we had an afternoon to spend together, we decided to go explore some new part of our local area. We finally settled on Waiuta, a town located north and east of us, what once was a gold mining town from 1905 to 1951, when the mine closed.

The first place we explored was the township area itself, around the first mineshaft to go in, the Blackwater shaft. There was a good-sized vein of gold-bearing quartz in this area, and apparently the operations were quite profitable while they lasted—they produced almost 750,000 ounces of gold altogether!

What Will be Left 02 — Old mine air vents, we’re guessing

What Will be Left 03 — Wetas on a cave ceiling

What Will be Left 04 — Old swimming pool ruins

What Will be Left 07 — Back of the carpenter’s shop (red roof) and boiler house

After exploring around the Blackwater shaft area for a while, we went up through a twisty, narrow, bush-clad gravel track to the top of the hill. The Prohibition shaft had been dug up there, to meet up with the extension of the Blackwater shaft work–both were on the same mine, but eventually the mine had extended almost too far to make it easy to access from the Blackwater end. The Prohibition shaft ran from 1938 until the mine closed in 1951, when the Blackwater shaft collapsed.

What Will be Left 08 — Prohibition mine (up the hill from the old town), looking toward the processing plant

What Will be Left 09 — Part of the powerhouse, I believe, where they generated energy to run the Prohibition mine shaft

What Will be Left 10 — The old safe in part of what once was the mine shaft’s office

What Will be Left 11 — The view from the top of the Prohibition mine shaft—the little red-roofed building in the bottom middle of the picture is where the town of Waiuta once was.

After seeing these ruins, and marveling that less than 70 years ago, this was still a living town, it really makes one think about what kind of a legacy we are going to leave? These miners poured years into working here, building a town, having families, making a livelihood—and yet today, only a few bricks, chunks of cement, rusty iron, gangly trees, and holes in the ground are left to mark what had been their life’s work.

What kind of a heritage—physical and spiritual—are you leaving in the lives of the people in your circles of influence?